Curbs on photos for websites remain unresolved

News agencies wait for revised media guidelines

Cricinfo staff

April 14, 2008

The Press Trust of India (PTI), the country's leading news agency, is waiting for an official response from the Indian Premier League (on "two sticky points" that remain unresolved, including a ban on providing photographs to cricket-specific websites), after Lalit Modi, the IPL chairman, offered to revise the contentious media coverage norms for the Twenty20 tournament. PTI had previously decided to ignore the event starting April 18 if the media guidelines were not modified.

VS Chandrashekar, an executive editor with PTI, also confirmed to Cricinfo that the News Media Coalition (NMC), an international umbrella body for news agencies, has handed over its own set of suggested coverage guidelines to the IPL. "The IPL has offered to climb down on some clauses," Chandrashekar said. "But nothing is official yet. We are waiting for them to issue the revised guidelines officially."

Chandrashekar said that Modi had spoken to him on Saturday and offered to drop the clause that gives IPL the right to use free of charge, all photographs taken by all those accredited to cover the tournament. Modi also offered to revise the limit of photographs that can be used by websites linked to newspapers from six to a "reasonable number", and added that news agencies can supply photographs to general websites but not cricket-specific websites.

However, Chandrashekar said that "two sticky points" remain: the ban on providing photographs to cricket-specific websites and a clarification on what constitutes "a reasonable number" of photographs. He said that the NMC's proposed media coverage guidelines address these concerns.

IS Bindra, a member of the IPL's governing council, told Cricinfo that "discussions are still on regarding a couple of points and the revised guidelines may be issued officially by today [Monday] evening".

Meanwhile, Barry Parker, the South Asia bureau chief of AFP, said the coalition of agencies was waiting for information regarding revised media coverage guidelines to be made public "hopefully, by this evening" before evaluating its stand.

AFP had earlier termed the IPL's coverage conditions as unacceptable and decided to ignore the event if they were not revised. The IPL's media guidelines have also been criticised by the Indian Newspaper Society and the Editor's Guild of India.

© Cricinfo

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In Focus

Indian Premier League

Stories

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India